with brightness of peace
by reciprocityfic
Summary: She doesn't know how this is happening, but she knows that it is. That's he's real. That he's alive. And that, she supposes, is all that matters. / Steve comes back, and he and Diana spend a lazy morning in bed.


**Author's Note:** Ahhhh, my first Wondertrev fic!

Hi, I'm Rebekah, and I usually write Rick x Michonne from The Walking Dead, but Steve and Diana have owned my heart as of late. So have this tiny fic! I haven't read or heard anything about WW84 other than watching the trailers, so you are very safe from spoilers.

The title comes from an E.E. Cummings poem called, "love is a place".

Hope you all like it! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

xoxo,  
rebekah

* * *

She can't stop staring at him. He's just as she remembered him being, yet somehow looking at him is like looking at something brand new, something beautiful, something you wanted so badly for _such _a long time but _knew_ you'd never get, you'd never have again. You knew it, you _knew it_, and yet.

_And yet…_

She doesn't know how he's here, how this is happening; not even she, with all her acquired knowledge, innate wisdom, and infinite time, can figure it out. But she doesn't question it, not right now, because she's surreptitiously longed for this every day for _sixty-six years_ and it doesn't matter how he's here because _he's here_ and she's dreamed of this for _decades. _Dreamed of him here, dreamed of him with her for everything - for every battle fought, every day saved. For every mundane moment. For every night spent flipping endlessly through late night television programs when sleep evades, for every trip to the grocery store to prepare for the week's meals, for every breakfast spent sipping coffee and reading the paper. She's dreamed of it, and maybe she's dreaming now, but even that wouldn't matter because right now it's real - he's _real_ \- and she never wants to wake up because he's with her again, _finally._

They lay in her bed, late morning sun shining in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that line her apartment walls and creating a yellow glow that encompasses them as they hide under the white sheets on their stomachs, smiling so wide and so often that the apples of their cheeks ache, as do their hearts - full-to-the-brim that they are, to the point of bursting. They stare at each other.

She can't stop staring at him. She never wants to stop.

She ghosts her hand over his face, trails her fingers down his nose and across his cheekbones, over his kiss-swollen lips. His crystal-blue eyes blink slowly at her, his gaze soft and lustful all at the same time. He reaches out, rests his hand in the dip at the small of her back, then traces up her spine, his fingertips playing her vertebrae like a piano.

"I love you."

She whispers it, merely _breathes _it, as if the words were one with the oxygen moving in and out of her lungs. They are, she supposes, in their importance. In their necessity to be released, to tell him what she's wanted to since he pulled her close in that tiny french village and taught her to sway while snow danced around them.

The corner of his mouth ticks up even further as his smile grows, and in a flash - faster than even _she _can process - he's on top of her, propped up on his hands so he hovers over her, the sheet pooling at his waist and the now-unhindered light creating a halo around him.

"I love you," he echoes, and she turns her head into one of the pillows as she giggles, joy spilling out of every pore in her skin. He joins her, collapses onto her as their chests shake with laughter. His head is nestled in the crook of her neck, and she uses both of her hands to lift it so she can see him. She runs her fingers through his hair, then frames his face with her palms.

He looks at her, eyes gentle and content, with a hint of that heat in the depth of his irises, and so, so _blue._ She wants to swim in his gaze, wants to live in it, wants to inhale and let it permeate her very being. She wants to drown in it.

"Is this what people do," he murmurs, "when there are no wars to fight?"

"This," she answers immediately, before biting her lip and glancing down for a moment, "and other things."

When her eyes meet his again, the heat has multiplied tenfold. He gulps, and then speaks, his voice unsteady.

"What things?"

She grins, and pulls him down to her, so that their foreheads rest together.

"Let me show you," she whispers, and then kisses him, hard. She pours her entire heart and soul into moving her lips against his.

They pull apart only when they have to, when their chests demand air. They smile, almost shyly, before bringing their mouths together once again. He pulls the sheets back over their heads, and they settle more deeply together.

And they continue on, and the sun shines on them.


End file.
